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Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Guatemala's resistance struggle

Former Guatemalan dictator and U.S.
ally Efraín Rios Montt was convicted in May for his role in the
massacre, torture and forced displacement of tens of thousands of
Guatemalans between March 1982 and August 1983--the first time in
history that a former head of state had been prosecuted for genocide in a
national court.
But the history of U.S.-sponsored state violence against the
Guatemalan people dates back much further--at least to 1954, when the
CIA and the United Fruit Company overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz in a
military coup. Since then, Guatemalans have faced one brutal government
after another. A guerrilla war, inspired by the Cuban Revolution, began
in 1960 and continued until the government and the guerrillas of the
Revolutionary National Unity of Guatemala signed a UN-brokered peace
agreement in 1996. Despite this, millions of Guatemalans--54 percent of
the population--still live in dire poverty.
Over 60 years, Guatemalans formed many left-wing organizations to
resist repression and exploitation. This history is heroic, but today's
social movements remain fragmented. "Ernesto ," a left-wing activist who survived the repression and hopes to be a part of rebuilding a left-wing movement, talked to Darrin Hoop about this history.

Guatemalan protesters demand that Ríos Montt and other war criminals be brought to justice

WHAT WAS the colonization of Guatemala like?

THE SPANIARDS came to the "Americas" in 1492 and to Guatemala in
1497. For Guatemalans, it was a violent invasion. From the moment the
Spaniards invaded our land until today, they have destroyed Guatemala.
People are slaves in their own land. Our culture, religion--everything
changed. Catholicism became the official religion.
They came looking for gold, but found something much more valuable:
land. And in the name of God and the King of Spain, all the land was
"theirs." The Spaniards didn't bring women at first. From the beginning,
they violated and raped Mayan women.
Some estimates are that the Spaniards killed two-thirds of the Mayan
Indians. Many were killed with guns, and others by diseases contracted
from Spaniards or carried by rats aboard their ships. Let me be clear:
What happened in Guatemala happened all over what is now called Latin
America.

THE MAYANS are known for their beautiful traditional clothes. What's the story behind it?

IF YOU travel around Guatemala, you will see the Mayans wear
different clothes in different areas. The Spanish slave owners forced
them to do this so they could identify their slaves in different
communities. Later, with the same goal in mind, men were branded like
animals with permanent tattoos that were different in each town.

COULD YOU talk about the Guatemalan Revolution in 1944?

1944 BEGAN what we call "the 10 years of spring." The revolution by
students, workers and campesinos (poor farmers) overthrew the government
of President Jorge Ubico, who ruled from 1931 to 1944.
From 1944 to 1951, Juan José Arévalo was the president. He set up a
labor law with a fixed minimum salary for workers, vacations with pay
for 20 days a year, pensions and the Social Security Institute of
Guatemala. All workers, including campesinos, could use the state
hospitals if you got sick. Workers didn't have to pay anything for
health care. Education was obligatory and free for all kids.
Jacobo Arbenz was president from 1951 to 1954. He passed the first
real agrarian land reform. He said, "Dear gringos (foreign companies),
if you are operating here, you have to pay taxes." Foreign companies
didn't pay anything to Guatemala.
He told the U.S. owners of the United Fruit Company (UFC) that they
had to pay $10 million (U.S. dollars) in taxes for the 100,000 hectares
they "owned." The UFC said no, they'd only pay $1 million. Arbenz kicked
them out of Guatemala. Their lands became the heart of the agrarian
reform. Their banana and coffee land was given to 10,000 poor Guatemalan
families.
The U.S. got very angry and began a campaign against Arbenz. On April
13, 1954, at a meeting of the Organization of American States in
Venezuela, the U.S. said they were going to invade Guatemala because
they couldn't allow communism to take hold in Latin America. It was for
the good of all Latin Americans for this to happen.
On June 21, 1954, the counterrevolution began. Based on a plan
developed by Allen and John Foster Dulles, U.S. troops, using a base
established in Honduras, invaded Guatemala. Arbenz fled. Carlos Castillo
Armas took over as the president after the military coup.

WHAT MADE you decide to join the guerrillas?

AT ONE point, because of the repression, for a year and a half, I
lived on one of the university campuses in Guatemala. We slept and ate
there. The police were not allowed to enter the university property
according to national law. But every two hours, we took turns keeping
watch on the military base close by.
One day, three military vehicles entered the university grounds. For
arms, all we had was an old 38 mm pistol, a 9 mm and one rifle. However,
we had fireworks. When the jeeps entered, we used the guns we had to
shoot at them, and we set off the fireworks to make a lot of noise so it
sounded like we had lots of weapons.
They turned around and left. I'm sure they would have killed us if we
hadn't done this. There were only five of us there that night. At this
time, I didn't think I'd be a part of the guerrillas. But this event
made us think about society, the military, our role as students and what
we can do to help people.

DID YOU have experiences as a guerrilla fighting in the mountains?

I WAS involved in three combats in the mountains. One of the times I
was fighting alongside my girlfriend when she was shot in the head. We
fought for another 20 minutes. She died next to me. It was one of the
saddest moments of my life, but there was hardly any time to cry. We
suffered a great deal during this time.

WHAT WAS the repression like before Efraín Rios Montt came to power? Could you give a few examples?

IN 1979 in Guatemala City, the military, after looking for one of the
movement leaders at his home and being unable to find him, they
kidnapped his three brothers. The bodies were found later naked in the
street, wrapped in barbed wire. Their penises were cut off and stuck in
their mouths.
Another example was the murder of the director of San Carlos
University in Quetzaltenango (Xela). One morning, two campesinos knocked
on the door of his home. His wife answered and said he wasn't home.
They asked when he'd be back. She said she didn't know.
They said they needed his help with some papers in order to get land.
He was a lawyer who often helped campesinos. He was standing behind the
door. He told his wife to let them in. He took them to his office. When
they sat down to talk, they pulled out a gun and killed him.
These two examples--there are many more, of course--happened before Rios Montt came to power.

WHAT WAS it like living under Rios Montt?

RIOS MONTT was in power from 1982 to 1983. He implemented a plan
called the "Scorched Earth" with the aim of demolishing the land and
people. It had three main points.
First, the elimination of the "subversion." The army wanted to "clean
up" the north and west of the country, where the center of the
guerrillas existed.
Second, setting up model towns. The military would take all the
campesinos into one place. They had a strategic plan where the military
surrounded the towns. They controlled the entrances to the towns. It was
similar to a concentration camp.
Third, the creation of Civil Defense Patrols. Every member of these
model towns was given a World War Two era gun in order to protect their
family against communists. In each town an evangelical church was set
up. Pat Robertson funded many of these churches in model towns. The
cross and the military. The Spaniards, when they invaded, did the same
with the Catholic Church. The U.S. did the same in the '80s with
evangelicals.
The military held movie showings in the towns. In one of them, a
female chicken lives happily with her baby chickens until a red wolf
comes from behind the house. It captures and kills the chickens. After
the military would explain the wolf was the communists who want to kill
you. There was a great ideological campaign to control the indigenous
people's minds.
Under his rule, the military said the Ixcan Triangle (encompassing
the towns Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul) was the most dangerous area for the
military. They would hang comrades from their feet naked in front of the
church, put gasoline on them, and set them on fire. How could soldiers
do such horrible torture? They are like animals, worse than animals.
I still have cassette tapes of female campesinos from Chajul talking
about the massacres they witnessed. A girl who was 14 at the time spoke
about the military entering her house. The soldiers said you know where
the guerrillas are. She said she didn't. She had a 2-month-old baby. The
soldier grabbed the baby by his feet, said you are lying, and threw the
baby against the wall, killing it instantly.
Rios Montt was behind all this. Otto Pérez Molina, now the president
of Guatemala, was Montt's right-hand man. Molina was the military
general in charge of destroying villages and murdering Indians. His
nickname was Major Tito Arias. By some accounts 450,000 Guatemalans were
murdered during the civil war, 1 million refugees fled to Mexico, and
440 villages were completely destroyed and wiped off the map.

HOW AND when did the civil war come to an end?

AFTER 36 years of civil war, on December 29, 1996, both sides--the
guerrillas and the military--signed a peace pact. I always said I was a
part of the guerrillas, but no one asked me what I thought. There was
never a vote about whether this pact was right or not. They didn't ask
their comrades what they thought. It was a decision by the leaders only.
There were huge parties and celebrations because of the signing.
Guerrillas turned in their guns. I didn't think it was time to sign the
peace accord. Why? There weren't schools. People were hungry. And many
of those guilty of crimes against the people were running free.

WHAT'S your life like now?

THE HOUSE I live in has walls of tin. They aren't proper walls. It's
open to the outside air. The floor is dirt, the earth. But it's my home.
After many years of fighting I have a little piece of land. I'm proud
of it. I'll give it to my kids in the future. Now I've been blacklisted.
I can't find a good job. Many doors were closed to me.
I lost comrades, friends, girlfriends, kids, parents, and nothing
changed. Former guerrillas are a part of the government. They are
corrupt and not doing anything. There are former guerrillas who are now
bodyguards for the rich.
I'm sentimental about the past. I cry about the past and present. The
stupid government says, "Everything is OK. We've changed for good."
It's hard to accept this reality. Why don't people rise up and fight?
This is part of the real history of Guatemala.

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About Me

DARCY D= YOU MUST BELIEVE.STANDING UP FOR THE INNOCENT C.E.O
The United Kingdom resident champions causes of the voiceless, the powerless and the weak, particularly in North America. She campaigns for petitions on behalf of incarcerated human trafficking.